This document describes the use of graphical user interfaces (GUIs) to develop categorization schemes that computer-executed processes can use to categorize information, especially information contained in electronic messages. Exemplary processes that use categorization schemes may be designed to be executed on enterprise computing systems. One such enterprise computing system involves software for performing business processes that include responding to large volumes of inbound communications from customers. Such inbound communications are typically in the form of email messages, but they may also include other forms of inbound data, such as information entered by a customer over the Internet directly into a form located on an enterprise's website.
The productivity of an individual agent who is responsible for responding to large volumes of inbound communications affects the cost of performing that particular business process. However, in controlling the cost, the quality of the responses should be maintained so that the customer is well served. Thus, systems used to respond to inbound communications should provide high quality responses in an efficient manner.
Systems that respond to high volumes of inbound emails may be called Email Response Management Systems (ERMS). By using an enterprise computing system to automate some of the steps of an ERMS, the process of responding to a large volume of inbound e-mails can be made more efficient and cost-effective. As such, an enterprise can use ERMS software to enhance productivity.
To realize maximum productivity gains in the run-time environment, an enterprise usually must first customize the ERMS software in the design-time environment. Specifically, the ERMS software must be configured to perform the particular business process steps required by a particular enterprise. In addition, the enterprise must be able to reconfigure the ERMS software to reflect changes in the enterprise's business process steps over time. Thus, an enterprise should be able to customize and to maintain ERMS software so that productivity gains can be maximized.
When an enterprise uses ERMS software to handle a large volume of inbound email messages, for example, it is important for the enterprise to quickly and accurately determine how to respond to received messages. For one message, an appropriate response may be to ship a product to a customer. For other messages, an appropriate response may be to provide a map of driving directions, or to contact a subject matter expert who can answer detailed technical questions. Accordingly, some ERMS systems make classification decisions to determine how to respond to each received message.
That classification decision can be partially or wholly automated by using computer-executed processes to rapidly review the received messages and to determine how each should be classified so that the enterprise can take appropriate steps to respond to each message. The classification decision may be used, for example, to retrieve stored information from a database. The stored information may then be automatically suggested to an agent who is responsible for responding to the message. Because the content of the message has already been classified, only stored information that has predefined associations to the content of the message are suggested to the agent. As such, the agent does not need to manually search for the stored information, which would take more of the agent's time. In enterprises in which an agent is responsible for responding to many hundreds of messages each day, reducing the time required for an agent to respond to each message can significantly improve productivity and reduce the overall cost of responding to received messages.